The Antioxidants: Vitamin C – The Champion

Ionizing radiation is defined by the ability to cause electrons to break off from molecules. Some of the ionization will happen directly to your tissues. Some will create electron-hungry free radicals, which then go looking for electrons and usually get them by binding with tissues (oxidation), causing further damage. The greatest concern is when the damage happens to DNA, leading to breaks in the DNA that can eventually lead to cancer. Anti-oxidants come in handy because they supply extra electrons to the body, thus neutralizing those electron-hungry free radicals.

Thus, anti-oxidants are one of the first lines of defense for those exposed to very high levels of ionizing radiation. Vitamins A, C and E are commonly used for acute radiation exposure. However, it must be noted that there are thousands of different antioxidants that occur naturally in foods such as fruits, vegetables and particularly herbs.

Vitamin C is considered one of the premier radioprotective anti-oxidants. Vitamin C is relatively cost-effective. But what makes Vitamin C the champion of anti-oxidants is that it is non-toxic even at extreme doses, which may be necessary when there is life-threatening illness or toxicity.

At high doses of oral vitamin C, the worst side effect is that people may begin to experience diarrhea. This is not dangerous, and simply means they need to back off a little bit on the dosage. Much larger doses of vitamin C can be tolerated via intravenous solution.

There is also a relatively new form of vitamin C called ‘lyposomal’ vitamin C which is taken orally, but boasts cellular absorption rates that are many multiples better than even intravenous treatment.

The following video is an excellent introduction to Vitamin C as a treatment for radiation-induced illness and how Vitamin C can help to prevent or repair DNA damage:

Vitamin C has also been demonstrated to have anti-cancer effects, separate from it’s radioprotective qualities. The following video with Dr. Thomas Levy goes into Vitamin C as a cancer treatment, as well as giving a background on why anti-oxidants are so important for human health generally.

Below are a series of videos that give a large amount of information on vitamin c and its role in detoxification that go way beyond radioprotection:

This is the dramatic story of a man who was terminally ill with swine flu who recovered due to vitamin c: